


Sea Change

by messageredacted



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Homestuck Shipping Olympics, M/M, Mermaids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 11:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/pseuds/messageredacted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first sign that the change is coming is when your skin gets itchy and tight, like your insides have started to grow faster than your outsides. You spend two nights in sullen denial, soaking in the ablution trap and scratching ceaselessly, before you finally have to admit that it really is starting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sea Change

**Author's Note:**

> Written for HSO Bonus Round #1 prompt: Eridan <3< Karkat, Mermaids + Body Horror

The first sign that the change is coming is when your skin gets itchy and tight, like your insides have started to grow faster than your outsides. You spend two nights in sullen denial, soaking in the ablution trap and scratching ceaselessly, before you finally have to admit that it really is starting.

Terezi went through this six perigees ago, and you’d had to put up with her constant complaining for a full week before she molted, and then, even worse, you’d had to put up with the winking emoticons in Trollian while she teased you for being so young and immature. What’s it like? you’d asked her. _You’ll find out_ , she had replied.

Then, of course, Sollux had gone through it, followed by Tavros, Kanaya, and eventually everyone else you knew, until it was just you, still hovering in your final instar, on the edge of sexual maturity.

Some days you had thought maybe you weren’t going to molt at all. Maybe your mutation was too severe, and instead of reaching maturity you would just stagnate right here, stunted and half-formed until you died young.

But now that it’s started, you find that you wish it wouldn’t. Once you molt, you’ll be an adult, and that means your blood color is going to be far more obvious. Your life is going to become even more of a clusterfuck than it is now.  


* * *

  
You wake up the next night with a film over your eyes. Everything is blurry and gray. You splash your eyes with water but it doesn’t help. You’re thirsty and your fingers and toes are all swollen and blistered. The sides of your ribcage ache to the touch.

You spend the night in the ablution trap again, miserable and sore. The water feels good, even though your ablution trap is shallow and uncomfortable. You wish you could submerge yourself entirely instead of just sitting hip deep. You lay back in the trap and fantasize over going swimming in the ocean. Of course, that would be a terrible idea; the seadwellers would destroy you. But you can dream.  


* * *

  
CG: REMEMBER WHEN I STAYED UP TALKING TO YOU ALL DAY BECAUSE YOU WERE TOO SCARED TO GO TO SLEEP AFTER WATCHING TROLL DAWN OF THE DEAD?   
CA: wwe agreed to nevver talk about that again    
CG: WELL YOU OWE ME A FAVOR.    
CA: do i    
CG: YES YOU FUCKING DO.    
CA: wwhat do you wwant    
CG: IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I’VE BEEN TO THE BEACH AND I SORT OF WANTED TO VISIT BUT I DIDN’T WANT SOME FISHFACED PSYCHOPATH TO CULL ME FOR GETTING TOO CLOSE TO THE WATER.    
CA: you wwanted to go to the beach    
CG: I HAVEN’T BEEN IN A WHILE.    
CA: just on a wwhim    
CG: WHY IS THAT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?    
CA: you hate the beach    
CG: MY LUSUS IS A CRAB.    
CA: you hate the sand    
CG: I CAN PUT UP WITH THE SAND.    
CA: you hate the wwater    
CG: I FUCKING LOVE THE WATER.    
CA: are you molting    
CG: OH MY GOD. WHY ARE YOU MAKING SUCH A BIG ISSUE OUT OF THIS.    
CA: you mean youre only molting noww  
CA: kar thats so precious    
CG: HOLY SHIT.  
CG: FUCK YOU.  
CG: I’LL SEE YOU TOMORROW.   


* * *

  
Since your lusus is a crab, you don’t live too far from the ocean. Still, it’s a long walk when your eyes don’t work correctly and the skin from your hips down is covered in a painful rash. You keep coughing because your lungs feel like they’re filled with fluid.

When you finally feel the sand under your feet, you could almost cry in relief. You can taste the salt on the air and feel the sharp breeze on your face.

“Holy fuck, I forgot how disgustin’ it is,” says Eridan. He’s a blurry shape in the water. “I mean seriously Kar, you look like shit.”

“Fuck you,” you mutter, shuffling through the sand. A wave laps over your feet and you hiss as the salt hits your blisters, but you don’t even hesitate before you wade in deeper.

Water splashes. You push through the breaking surf and then dive into the water. The sensation on your skin is so blissful that you almost groan out loud. The itching in your legs relaxes, and you open your eyes under water.

The film over your eyes isn’t as obtrusive under water. In fact, it protects your eyes from the salt. Eridan flicks his tail and swims in a circle around you, as sinuous as an eel. The purple-black scales over his hips glimmer with iridescence. Any vague thoughts you had of taking off your shirt are immediately banished. There is no way you’re baring an inch of your scrawny gray flesh in front of that kind of physical perfection.

You surface and take a deep breath. Eridan surfaces next to you.

“That’s a molt, all right,” he says.

“Is this as bad as it gets?” you ask despairingly, riding a wave as it raises you off the sand and then lets you down again.

Eridan rakes wet hair out of his face. “Growin’ the tail was the worst bit. I don’t know how it is for land dwellers.”

You groan and sink back under the water, scratching at your ribs. Eridan follows you down and then frowns at you, his eyes fixing on something on your neck. He reaches out and pokes at it and you recoil.

“What the fuck,” you say in a cloud of bubbles, and then you bob to the surface again. “What are you doing, you asshole?”

“You got something on your neck,” he says, reaching out again. You slap his hand away and then poke at your own neck. There’s a knot in your flesh there. In fact, there’s one on both sides of your neck. They hurt to the touch.

As you prod it with a finger, the knot on the right side of your neck splits open. Something unfurls from inside, damp with lymph. You make a noise of utter disgust and duck under the water to rinse it off. The fresh wound stings. Muscles twitch in your neck.

Eridan is staring at you in horror. “Since when do you have _fins_ ,” he says.

“It’s not a fin,” you say, tugging at the flap of flesh that has revealed itself. You can’t see it, but you can feel the spines of cartilage inside it. “It’s just some sort of, uh. Growth.”

You claw at the other side of your neck until that splits as well. By this point the itch in your ribcage has grown unbearable, and you can’t even stop yourself from pulling your shirt over your head. You dig your claws into the swollen flesh on each side of your ribcage.

There are six long slits in your chest, three to each side. Each one has a vivid red opercula, and as they peel open for the first time, you can feel cold water rush into your chest. You have a moment of blind terror before you suddenly realize that _you’re breathing_.

“Holy shit, Kar,” Eridan says underwater, his eyes fixed on the bright red lining of your gills. “You’re a _mutant_. That’s perverse.” He sounds like he’s caught between disgust and delight.

If you were less distracted, you’d punch him. “Stop staring at me,” you say instead. “Just fuck off back to your hive. I’ll be fine.”

He circles you like a shark. He has far too much spine for a troll. It’s disturbing to see him move like that, like he has muscles in places you didn’t even know existed. “Just wait until your tail grows in. That red is going to be freakish.”

“Fuck you.”

He grins. “There are sea trolls out here who would eat you for breakfast. They’d hunt you for sport.”

You snarl at him with far more confidence than you feel. “You can try.”

“I just might,” he replies. He completes one more circle around you and then kicks off with his tail, giving you more space. “But I’ll give you a head start.”


End file.
